New AMD Processors to Include Protections for Spectre-like Exploits
AMD’s new Zen 2 and future processors will include protections against Spectre and other similar exploits, the tech giant revealed on Tuesday as it announced its earnings for 2017.
AMD CEO Lisa Su reiterated that the company’s CPUs are not vulnerable to Meltdown attacks and one variant of the Spectre attack is difficult to carry out against its products.
“For Spectre Variant 1, we continue actively working with our ecosystem partners on mitigations, including operating system patches that have begun to roll out. We continue to believe that Variant 2 of Spectre is difficult to exploit on AMD processors, however we are deploying CPU microcode patches – in combination with OS updates – to provide additional mitigation steps,” Su explained.
The CEO highlighted that in the long-term the company plans on including protections for Specter-like exploits into all future processor cores. These protections have already been implemented into the design of recently unveiled Zen 2 CPUs, which are expected to become available next year.
AMD reported revenue of $5.33 billion for 2017, which it says represents a 25 percent increase compared to the previous year. However, the company warned that the Spectre and Meltdown exploits could have a negative impact on the company’s revenue, including as a result of lawsuits, which have already been filed against the organization.
“Actual or perceived security vulnerabilities of AMD products may subject AMD to adverse publicity, damage to its brand and reputation, and could materially harm AMD’s business or financial results,” the company stated.
Intel also informed customers that it’s working on CPUs that will include built-in protections against Meltdown and Spectre attacks.
In the meantime, existing software and microcode patches have caused problems for many users, which has led to vendors halting updates and disabling mitigations until issues are resolved.
Related: Fake Meltdown/Spectre Patch Installs Malware
Related: Intel Tests Performance Impact of CPU Patches on Data Centers
Related: Industry Reactions to Meltdown, Spectre Attacks
Eduard Kovacs is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
Tags:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Securityweek/~3/AcvFtgvLQDQ/new-amd-processors-include-protections-spectre-exploits